On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for May 6th, 2016
The Shutting of Doors
Life is full of possibilities and choices. Sometimes, it is like being in a hallway with several doorways. Some of these doors are open, and some of these doors are closed. There is the closed door we work hard to get to that opens for us when the time is right, and there is the door that is open until we get right up to the threshold, and God shuts it in our stupid face.
God is a giant man in a white lab coat, and we are small rodents in a maze. He is watching us scramble around the maze, the best we can, while he jots notes on his Clipboard. Sometimes, He wants to know what will happen if He changes the labyrinth, if we get used to it and start to learn our way. Other times, He shoots us up with carcinogenicity to see how we run around the maze with cancer. Sometimes, He is off for the weekend or on a long sabbatical.
Sometimes, the giant man named God in the lab coat prefers some of the little people running around the maze. He picks them up, pets them, and places them in better situations within the maze. This might look like a dollar on the ground, a parking spot near the supermarket entrance, or a job that comes by networking instead of a strong resume and good interviewing skills.
He then dislikes others, so He shuts doors and traps the little helpless people in dead-end situations with no way out. Sometimes, He puts his favorite little guys in charge of the less-than-favored, who eat them instead of just ruling them. If it feels like you have bad luck, God doesn’t like you.
So when you feel like a door closing and another door opening, go for the window because that might lead to the lab floor and freedom.
Prayer
God in the Lab Coat and Clipboard,
Please help me get to the end of this maze.
Please remove every single obstacle that stands in my way of getting to the end of this maze.
Please don’t experiment with cancer or other diseases.
Please don’t experiment with social and political theories on us, so we end up killing and eating each other on live TV.
Please don’t see if the makeup will make my skin fall off.
Just let me get to the end of this maze without too many harrowing adventures.
I want to get my reward.
Oh, the end is death?
And after death is nothing?
No heaven, hell, or anything?
Just nothing?
Just a dreamless sleep for eternity, but time ceases?
Yes, lab coat God, help me get there.
Eternity is the right amount of sleep.
Craft
Stop being the mouse in the maze and start being the obstacle. If you can’t be one of the chosen mice, the least you can do is ruin it for all the others.
Here are some ideas to make the maze miserable for the mice that don’t know they are mice in a maze:
Get someone fired. Plant stolen money in them, blame them for everything, and turn the whole company against them. Make sure you do this to someone you won’t be replacing. It needs to be malicious, not opportunistic.
Break up a loving couple. Sleep with one or both of them, Photoshop pictures of one of them cheating, and point out the other’s flaws like they mean something much more sinister. Again, this can’t be an opportunity for a future relationship with one or both of them; this is just for pure evil.
Get someone arrested. Plant drugs in their car and call the cops about a possible drunk driver.
Goal
Find a way out of the maze, Neo.